Restrooms containing toilets are difficult to keep sanitary. This is true whether the restrooms are public or private.
When a human sits on a toilet, various gases may be emitted from the human. In addition, many now believe that the flushing of the toilet produces aerosols containing pathogens. These gases and aerosols permeate the restroom, contaminating surfaces, such as water valve handles at a sink, and objects, such as toothbrushes and towels, with germs.
I have developed a number of toilet ventilation systems, which systems exhaust the air from the toilet bowl out of the restroom. I have obtained the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,991,933; 5,875,496; 5,522,093 and 5,491,847. These systems ventilate the toilet bowl by drawing in the air from the bowl and out to a pipe in a wall of the restroom. These types of systems, while working quite well in ventilation, are expensive to install because a vent pipe must be installed in the restroom wall, with the pipe either exiting the building through the roof or tying into another vent pipe.